Caveman Alien’s Sword

by Calista Skye

  “We were in that ship for maybe six days,” Delyah lies. “We almost starved to death.”

  Zahak pulls the claw out of me and I bend at the waist, clutching my chest.

  A second later, I scream again as the claw pierces me right over my collarbone.

  “It is difficult to trick a dragon. Now I will have the truth,” Zahak says calmly. “How many days’ flight?”

  “A half day,” Delyah says quickly. “At most.”

  “A ship?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind?”

  She hesitates, and I know why. If we tell Zahak it was a Plood ship, he might figure out just about how far away Earth is if he knows how far a saucer like that can travel in a few hours.

  “We have no idea,” she finally says.

  Zahak raises his hand a fraction, forcing me up on tiptoe so the claw won’t rip me further. That’s soft tissue, and it’s very close to my throat. I can feel it against my windpipe.

  Red dots are dancing before my eyes. More and more of them.

  Damn it. This is how it ends for me.

  “The Plood!” Delyah tries to yell. “It was a Plood ship. The Plood abducted us.”

  “Don’t tell him shit,” I hiss, trying to confuse him. I’m dead, anyway. But I will die without having betrayed Earth. “He must never know the truth!”

  “It appears you two disagree on the course of events,” Zahak muses. “But I frown upon conflicting information. I require consensus.”

  He hooks a finger on his other hand under Delyah’s jawbone and lifts her while she screams in pain.

  “You,” he says and pierces me with his yellow eyes. “How long were you in the ship?”

  If my mouth weren’t so dry, I’d try to spit in his face. But it’s fine. His claw inside my throat is about to pierce something vital in there. And I know that both Delyah and I are dead anyway, even if we answer everything truthfully.

  He raises his hand another half inch, and my vision goes all red. The next time he does that, I’ll die. The pain is unbearably intense.

  “How long?”

  There’s a loud sound from above, metallic and fleshy and hard. A second later, there’s a similar sound, but not from above. It sounds a little like the air being knocked out of somebody falling to the floor.

  The claw withdraws from my body, and I collapse onto my knees. Delyah does, too.

  Zahak has taken a step back.

  And I guess he has every reason to.

  There’s someone on the floor, next to the Weirdness, trying to get onto his feet.

  I squint through tears and blood, and then a spark of light goes off inside my mind. The length of that sword alone is enough to be sure. But he’s bloodied and looks exhausted as he gets up onto his knees, then slowly reaches his full height.

  And sure, he may be exhausted. But I’m glad I’m not on the receiving end of that turquoise glare. A dragon slayer facing a dragon can get pretty intense.

  “You again,” Zahak sighs. “I thought I’d been so generous in letting you go. But very well, I shall take that sword into my hoard. Will you give it up, or shall I just kill you?”

  Juri’ex walks closer, and his knees seem a little wobbly. “Dragon,” he rumbles. “You spoke into my mind and tricked me to leave.”

  “I only said the things you, yourself suspected. It was obvious. Now hand it over.”

  The dragon-man holds his hand out, palm up.

  Juri’ex ignores it. “How are you, Ashlynn, my love?”

  The end of that sentence brightens my mind. It is ridiculous, because my hands have blood smeared all over them and there’s a murderous dragon six feet away. “Not so good. That man is a dragon, Juri’ex. He wants to kill us.”

  Zahak shrugs and smirks. “And I thought I was being so subtle about it.”

  Faster than the eye can follow, Juri’ex slashes his helicopter blade sword at the dragon.

  And hits Zahak’s hand, cutting a small chip off a claw.

  The dragon is stunned, staring at his hand in horror.

  Then he screams so my lungs tremble and transforms into its dragon form, beats its wings, and takes off.

  “That is probably not better,” Delyah wheezes. And then she fucking grins. “But I was getting tired of that guy’s talk. I’m glad you came, Ashlynn. Even if this is it.”

  “Me, too,” I reply. “But this isn’t it. Or did you miss the full-size dragonslayer in the room?”

  “Oh, I saw him. Hey, whatever happens, I’m still glad you came.”

  The dragon circles the Weirdness, elegant and lethal. Any moment now it will descend and blow its fire, and we’ll all be dead. Except Zahak really wants to know where Earth is. And everything was going fine for him until Juri’ex arrived.

  I have no sooner thought that through before Zahak swoops down at Juri’ex and then blows fire at him.

  You’d think the caveman would be hard to miss. But he dives away and gets the Weirdness between himself and the dragon, at least for a short while. The fire scorches the wall instead.

  The heat from the fire washes over us.

  “He can blow a much larger flame than that,” Delyah whispers. “This room is too small for him. He must be worried about burning himself if the fire is reflected from the wall.”

  “Or, he’s worried about the Weirdness,” I add.

  Zahak swoops down with deceptive laziness and aims for Juri’ex. The caveman stands his ground with his back to the Weirdness and strikes his sword at the enemy, but it hits the scales with a sound like a buzzsaw on granite, creating a shower of sparks.

  Dragon scales are tough.

  Juri’ex is holding his sword awkwardly, as if he’s having trouble getting a good grip on it. And even at the best of times, his blade is no match for that kind of armor.

  Zahak knows that, too. I can hear his laugh in my head, cold and cruel.

  The dragon soars thirty feet into the air, beating his wings only once. Then he shoots down again.

  Coming straight for me.

  I don’t even have time to raise my hands in futile defense before I’m in his claws, rising fast as he surges into the air.

  The dragon’s body is cold and metallic and yet bulging with life and power. I’m held hard with two of its legs, and the claws dig into my chest and stomach.

  Where and how far?

  There’s no sound, but still my mind rings with evil intent.

  I come to a cold realization:

  We can’t win this.

  Delyah and I are badly weakened. Juri’ex much more so. He’s bleeding from his hands and legs, and I think he fell down the entire length of the elevator shaft.

  The dragon is much stronger than all of us.

  And even if we all die without revealing the location of the Earth, he knows enough to find it: He knows that it exists. Not as a myth or as hearsay, but as fact. The tissue pack is hard evidence for it, enough motivation for him to search all of space until he finds it.

  And that’s my fault.

  The dragon is hovering, squeezing the life out of me.

  “A half day!” Delyah yells hoarsely. “A Plood ship! Seven light years at most!”

  It’s the truth. She’s telling the dragon all we know about where Earth is. She can’t bear to see me tortured to death for information that the dragon already has. I love her for that.

  But I deserve to die.

  And we can’t let the dragon escape now.

  There’s nothing more to lose. We’ve lost. Now it’s time to weigh the few minutes that remain of our lives against seven billion lives on Earth. And who knows how many generations who will never be born if Zahak finds it.

  “Juri’ex,” I wheeze. “The Weirdness. Your sword. Throw it.”

  He looks down at the weapon in his hand. That blade is his life. It’s not just a possession, but a friend. It is all that he is.

  He understands perfectly well what I’m asking him to do.

  He looks up at me. “Ashly
nn,” he calls, and damn it if his voice doesn’t resonate better than Zahak’s did. “I love you. Will you marry me?”

  Despite the intense pain and my imminent death, I want to laugh. He really picks his moments. And of course, the answer is obvious. I will never be able to make good on it, but here at the end of my life, at least there will be a little spark of truth and joy.

  “Yes,” I yell as loudly as I can, but it comes out a croak. “I will.”

  Zahak squeezes the last of the air out of me. Immediately, blackness starts forming around the edges of the world.

  Juri’ex says something to Delyah and she lies down flat on the floor. Then he runs halfway around the Weirdness so it’s between him and the dragon.

  He aims, lays his arm and sword back, his body a bowstring of tense power, and then flings his beloved weapon through the Weirdness, straight at the dragon and me.

  25

  - Ashlynn -

  There is a long moment of something I know I will never be able to describe. It is an eternity, but it is also no time at all. It is vast, but it is also nothing. Everything moves, but all is still. Everything happens, but nothing occurs. It is an explosion of light, and it is a deep, heavy darkness.

  It is wonderful.

  And it is horrific.

  I am vaguely aware that I am on the floor, and something smells wonderful.

  “She’s coming to.”

  I open my eyes, and they take their sweet time focusing. The flashing lights aren’t helping.

  There’s Delyah.

  And the garden level.

  And… I try to focus on something that’s much closer. “Juri’ex!”

  “My love,” he rumbles, and my body trembles with the sound, easily drowning out the piercing siren.

  Ah. I’m being held in his arms. That’s why. That also explains the smell. It’s his scent.

  But there’s something not right. I struggle to think of it. “Dragon!”

  “No,” Delyah says and strokes my head. “The dragon is gone. You can relax.”

  I’m not so sure. “The Weirdness,” I babble, still not quite present. “Throw something into the Weirdness. The energy. Infinite! The dragon can’t escape! We all die, but-”

  “Yes,” Delyah says. “The Weirdness has infinite energy. The dragon didn’t escape. We almost didn’t, either.”

  I take a breath, deciding to have my mind clear up before I say much more. “Uh-huh. And the Kleenex?”

  “I’m afraid your tissues perished with the dragon, Ashlynn. It was his hoard. There’s nothing left of it. Or of him.”

  I adjust my position so I’m sitting on Juri’ex’s lap, where I intend to stay for the foreseeable future. “What happened?”

  “I threw my sword at the dragon, through the Weirdness,” Juri’ex says into my hair. “And the Ancestors came.”

  My jaw drops. “Huh?”

  “I don’t think we will ever know what exactly happened,” Delyah says carefully. “My memory of it… umm… differs a lot from Juri’ex’s. But it was extremely weird and disturbing, and I’ll be absolutely fine with never experiencing even the smallest fraction of it again. It got close to frying my brain once and for all. I can only say that at the end of it, the dragon was a heap of ash and you were on the floor.”

  I look around, still a little groggy. “Here?”

  “Down at the Weirdness level. Juri’ex carried both of us up the ladders, we took the elevator up to the service level, and then the beam up here, where there is fruit and water. And then you woke up.”

  I scratch my shin. “Why did the dragon die, while I didn’t?”

  “Juri’ex aimed for the dragon, not for you. He has pretty sensational aim. My only guess is that the sword passed through the Weirdness, gained much more energy and speed there, was reduced to a stream of plasma and then passed right through the dragon. I base this on the very large holes in the wall. On opposite walls, I should add. Two holes, as if the blade passed completely through the whole ship, not just the one wall behind the dragon. Yeah, none of it makes sense.”

  “Faster than light,” I marvel. “Two holes, where there should only be one. The sword went through both walls at the same time. It was going faster than light. Leaving before it arrived. Must have been.”

  “If you say so, then that’s what happened,” Delyah states. “I’ll defer to you on any question about physics.”

  I look up at Juri’ex. “You threw your sword.”

  He strokes my back, and his huge, warm hand feels pretty damn good. “I remember that.”

  “I’m sorry you lost it. I know it was important to you.”

  He chuckles and makes my whole body shake. “I would say it served its purpose. I’ll make another.”

  I clumsily put a hand against his cheek. “I meant what I said down there.”

  He grabs my wrist to hold it in place. “I was hoping you did. But the timing was not ideal.”

  “Is there ever an ideal time for that? I’d say it was pretty damn perfect. We’ll get it done as soon as we get back to the village, okay? We have a shaman who’ll do it. Her name is Caroline, and she is very good at marrying people. I mean, wedding people. No. Wait, I’ll get this right. She is good at officiating at weddings.”

  “Very well.”

  I take his hand and examine it. “You have punctures all over you and your hands are all bloody. Was there a dactyl?”

  “There were robots,” Juri’ex says. “Many. They attacked me when I stepped out of the beam on the lowest level. They had claws that shot through me as soon as I emerged. But I destroyed them all.”

  “Why did the robots attack us, Delyah?”

  “I think they just malfunctioned. I doubt Zahak made them do it. But he did break a lot of the systems while he was here. That could have been enough.”

  Juri’ex strokes my hair. “Ashlynn, my love. I’m sorry and ashamed about leaving you.”

  I turn on his lap and bury my face in his chest. “You came back for me. You came back.”

  And that’s all I’m able to say for a good while.

  Finally, I wipe the tears and look at Delyah. “Girl, your throat… we have to get some of that MSG.”

  “I have magic space gel up in the control room,” she says. “But we didn’t want to go up those stairs before you were back to life. You have the worst injuries of all of us.”

  I look down myself. There is a bit of blood and bruising. But being in Juri’ex’s arms soothes the pain pretty well. “I deserve it. It not for my stupid tissues, Zahak might have left on his own.”

  “We don’t know that,” Delyah says. “He came into the ship and destroyed some of the systems. He might have just killed us outright if he hadn’t found that thing. The tissues might have bought us some time. And ultimately, we won. So.”

  I reach out with one hand and grab her arm. “Thank you. I don’t believe that theory, but I appreciate it. Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t get rid of the pack and bury it with the other items that the girls had. It’s just…”

  “You don’t have to explain,” Delyah cuts me off. “We all long for things that remind us of Earth. That it even exists. Hell, we’ve been here for almost two years by now. Our own planet is growing distant in our minds. And I, for one, hate that.”

  “It reminded me of Earth,” I agree. “That was it. Such a silly thing. Just a pack of tissues. One of those is, like, sixty cents. Here, it became priceless. But the other girls gave up much more valuable things. Heidi gave up her glasses, for fuck’s sake.”

  “Xren is tough,” Delyah says mildly. “It forces us to make tough choices. And I happen to think that you made the right choice. I believe my theory is correct. That pack of tissues saved us. Now, let’s eat some fruits and get up to the control room to treat our wounds. And then we’ll go home.”

  Juri’ex stirs underneath me, and I remember something. “Wait. There’s something I have to do first.”

  - - -

  The wide track the gatagan
ks made through the jungle is starting to disappear. New trees and bushes and plants are springing up everywhere. But the old broken trees are still there, making progress hard. So, we walk at the edge of the jungle, very carefully.

  Juri’ex has no sword, and he’s clutching a new spear made from a tree on the waterfall level with Delyah’s old spearhead on it. He’s not happy about that. But he allows us to talk, as long as we keep our voices down.

  “The dragon scared the dinos,” I theorize. “That’s why we met so many of them. Herds of raptors and two gataganks in quick succession.”

  “Probably,” Delyah agrees. “Zahak must have killed that other dragon and then flown right here. Makes sense that he’d go to Bune as soon as he saw it. For all he knew, there might have been some of the Ex still alive inside.”

  I step around a fallen tree and glance at the broad, turquoise-striped back walking in front of us. He’s much more scarred now, but he’s also healing fast from the MSG. So am I, and so is Delyah.

  “How did the dragon even get in?”

  Delyah shrugs. “Same way we all get in. That door was not secured in any way.”

  “Well, it said ‘dinosaurs no entry’. Probably should have added ‘dragons’, too. And now it’s less secure than ever. What happened when he came up to you, anyway?”

  “He came into the control room and just attacked me. In his man form, not dragon. I activated the alarm so you might escape. I gathered he had been spying on you two for days. And he gloated over having made Juri’ex leave.”

  I shudder. “So creepy to have a dragon speak into your mind. I mean, you and I are used to tech. Like, earpods and radio and all kinds of artificial noises. Back on Earth, we hear disembodied voices all the time. We know when something is off. To a caveman, it has to be a very new experience. I’m not surprised it got to him.”

  “Me, neither. Judge him kindly, Ashlynn. He was up against something he couldn’t possibly fight.”

  Immediately, a lump forms in my throat. “Oh, I will never judge him. He came back. And then he gave up his sword. For me.”

  Delyah squeezes my wrist. “They have a way of surprising you, these guys. In the best possible ways. In the end, their gigantic and searing hot hearts usually win out.”